Science Talk

Summary: Science Talk is a weekly science audio show covering the latest in the world of science and technology. Join Steve Mirsky each week as he explores cutting-edge breakthroughs and controversial issues with leading scientists and journalists. He is also an articles editor and columnist at Scientific American magazine. His column, "Antigravity," is one of science writing's great humor venues. Also check our daily podcast from Scientific American : "60-Second Science." To view all of our archived podcasts please go to www.scientificamerican.com/podcast

If you're 14 to 18 years old, you still have until December 14th to prepare a two-minute video of a suggestion for an experiment to be performed at the International Space Station and upload it to youtube.com/spacelab. Winners will see their experiment performed in space

Thomas LeCompte of Argonne National Lab was the physics coordinator for the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. He talks about the instrument and its future, as we await the December 13th announcement as to whether the LHC has found the Higgs particle

Eric J. Nestler, director of the Friedman Brain Institute at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, talks about his article in the December issue of Scientific American magazine on epigenetics and human behavior, called "Hidden Switches in the Mind"

Listen to the announcement of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, to Daniel Shechtman of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Then hear comments from the president of the American Chemical Society, Nancy Jackson, of Sandia National Laboratories

Listen to the announcement of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, to Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess, from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Following the formal announcement comes an explanation of the research, which tracked type Ia supernovae to discover that the expansion of the universe was accelerating, and a phone conversation with new Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt

Eric von Hofe, cancer researcher and president of the biotech company Antigen Express talks about his article in the October issue of Scientific American called "A New Ally against Cancer," about cancer vaccines

The annual Scientific American September single-topic issue is all about cities. And award-winning author Carl Zimmer recently penned a piece on evolution research in the urban environment for The New York Times . In part 1 of this interview, he talks about urban evolution

Nobel laureate Avram Hershko, who determined cellular mechanisms for breaking down proteins, talks about his research in a conversation recorded at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, Germany. And Scientific American Editor in Chief Mariette DiChristina discusses the recent inaugural Google Science Fair

Peter Agre, 2003 Chemistry Nobel laureate for his work on aquaporins, the proteins that allow water into and out of cells, talks about his research, his upbringing and why he almost ran for the Senate, in a conversation recorded at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, Germany